What are some tips for aspiring beanplating bloggers?

November 22, 2010 3:23 PM

What are some tips for writing a beanplating blog?

Say it's a TV show, or superhero movies, or Beatles songs. What are some general tips for finding sources, digging up details, and writing obsessively and interestingly about said subject?

posted by Avenger50 to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (7 answers total)

If you are obsessive about subject X, wouldn't you already know about the sources of information? That would be a core feature of being obsessive about whatever in the first place. You'd already have a long list of sources of info on the subject. If you don't, you probably aren't obsessive about the subject, and any attempt to fake it via blog is likely doomed to fail. You won't be interested enough to keep writing, and the readers won't come because it's that single minded obsession that makes these types of blogs interesting in the first place.
posted by COD at 3:38 PM on November 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

come up with a schedule and stick to it. you can post more often, but don't post less often.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:07 PM on November 22, 2010

I guess one tip would be to think about how the fellow beanplaters would interact and/or find you. Some beanplating is for a Livejournal community; some beanplating would thrive on Tumblr; some beanplating is made for forums, or for Twitter distribution. Where are your fellow beanplaters?
posted by RJ Reynolds at 5:07 PM on November 22, 2010

Interactive features such as a method to take submissions or a willingness to link to related content that isn't your own.
posted by acidic at 6:52 PM on November 22, 2010

You should have a look at this question and its answers for inspiration: What are some comprehensive one-topic websites maintained by cranky old guys (or gals)?
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:59 PM on November 22, 2010

Rather than just moving information from web site A to web site B, add information to the net. Go real places and take your own pictures. Conduct your own in-person or phone interviews with largely forgotten actors and other people involved in old productions. Hang out in real libraries and dig up printed stuff that hasn't been released (or at least isn't easily available) in electronic form. Conduct experiments and publish your results. Very carefully compare various versions of certain stories to determine the likely truth. Compile minute-by-minute accounts of events.
posted by pracowity at 12:48 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I've pseudonymously written for a site for about 3 years now thats pretty specific, here's my take:

Are there lots of sites about your topic? think about taking a different tone from them, if other sites are too serious, negative, oblivious to reality, try to come at it from another direction that feels comfortable but also sort of fills a void / meets a need.

Explore how your topic interacts with things, how it is/was produced, monetized, sustained, what factors could affect it in the future. like, with beatles songs, what else is being recorded with that classic bad-ass studio gear, who has done nice cover versions. with a TV show, what else have the actors, writers, producers done. things like wikipedia and imdb are your obvious starting points but you'll should figure out more sources and also get some google alerts set up for useful search terms, and some sites will let you save searches as rss feeds, google reader or something similar is awesome for this.

Look at current events, pop culture, trends, society in general, and relate it to your topic. this is a good well to go to when you need content and you just don't have anything

Think about people interested in your topic, how they are perceived and portrayed? do you want to explore this, or provide positive counter-examples?

Also, be sure to keep track of ideas, put them on your phone or just jot them down
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 11:28 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]